USDA Won't Allow Private Mad Cow Testing

Daisy · Mar 24, 2006

Meatpacker May Sue USDA Over Testing

The firm wants to check all its cattle for mad cow disease, but the department says that wouldn't ensure safety.
From the Associated Press
March, 23 2006

WASHINGTON — A Kansas meatpacker has sparked an industry fight by proposing testing all the company's cattle for mad cow disease.

Creekstone Farms wants to look for the disease in every animal it processes. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said no. Creekstone says it intends to sue the department.

"Our customers, particularly our Asian customers, have requested it over and over again," Chief Executive John Stewart said Wednesday. "We feel strongly that if customers are asking for tested beef, we should be allowed to provide that."

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Creekstone would need U.S. certification for its plan to test each animal at its Arkansas City, Kan., plant. The department refused the license request in 2004.

The U.S. has been testing about 1% of the 35 million head of cattle slaughtered each year, although officials plan to scale back that level of testing.

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The U.S. has had three cases of mad cow disease. The first appeared in December 2003 in a Washington state cow that had been imported from Canada. The second was confirmed last June in a Texas-born cow, and the third was confirmed last week in an Alabama cow.

Japan has had two dozen cases of the disease.

Source: LA Times (from AP) (linkie)
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From Reuters:

Stewart's firm, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef LLC, wants to test all its slaughter cattle for mad cow disease. Its suit in U.S. district court in Washington, DC, would force the Agriculture Department to give it access to test kits for the brain-wasting disease.

The suit was applauded by consumer groups. But USDA, which convinced Japan to drop its own universal testing program, opposes private testing of cattle. Mad cow incubates for years, USDA says, and "is not detected in young animals," the bulk of the 35 million head of U.S. cattle slaughtered for meat each year.

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The Consumers Union, which has called for USDA to test all cattle over the age of 20 months for mad cow, said Creekstone should be allowed to test for the disease.

"The fact of the matter is our food system is not fool-proof," said Urvashi Rangan, a senior scientist and policy analyst for the consumer group. "There is plenty of room," she said, "for additional steps to be taken. Why not give companies the right to do that?"

Critics in the cattle industry said Creekstone was trying to hijack food safety regulations for financial advantage. The American Meat Institute, representing meatpackers, said BSE testing almost always is a government function worldwide.

Public health is protected not by mad-cow tests, a USDA spokesman said, but by federal rules that ban the use of cattle parts in cattle feed and require the removal from carcasses of older cattle the brains, spinal columns and nervous tissue most at risk of carrying the infective agent for mad cow.

Japan banned U.S. beef for two years following the first U.S. case of mad cow. It resumed purchases in late 2005 under stringent rules and suspended trade on January 20 after finding forbidden spinal material in a shipment of veal.

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In its suit, Creekstone challenged USDA's use of a 1913 law to prevent access to rapid-screening tests for mad cow. USDA does not allow private testing for BSE.

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Source linkie
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From what appears to be a 2004 editorial, when Creekstone Farms was first refused the tests:

Creekstone Farms Slaughtered by USDA
By Jonathan Turley
First published by the Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2004

Creekstone Farms is a little slaughterhouse in Kansas with an idea that would have had Adam Smith's mouth watering. Faced with consumers who remain skittish over mad cow disease - especially in Japan - Creekstone decided that all its beef would be tested for mad cow, a radical departure from the random testing done by other companies. It was a case study in free-market meatpacking entrepreneurship. That is, until the Bush administration's Department of Agriculture blocked the enterprise, apparently at the behest of Creekstone's competitors.

According to the Washington Post, Creekstone invested $500,000 to build the first mad cow testing lab in a U.S. slaughterhouse and hired chemists and biologists to staff the operation. The only thing it needed was testing kits. That's where the company ran into trouble. By law, the Department of Agriculture controls the sale of the kits, and it refused to sell Creekstone enough to test all of its cows. The USDA said that allowing even a small meatpacking company like Creekstone to test every cow it slaughtered would undermine the agency's official position that random testing was scientifically adequate to assure safety.

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The administration may be correct that testing every animal in the U.S. is unnecessary and not cost-effective. But why not let Creekstone find out what the market will bear? The position of the administration is an affront to anyone who believes in the free market. It's as if the Department of Transportation refused to allow Volvo to add air bags just to keep the pressure off other carmakers.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington Law School.
Source: Reclaim Democracy (reprint from the LA Times) (linkie)
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Why not allow the company to test for Bovine Spongeiform Encephalitis if it wants to?

poncho · Mar 26, 2006

The manufacturers of RFID chips and the meat packers would rather have all animals tagged electronically, the added cost and controls would put smaller producers and hobby farmers out of business. I think that's probably the idea behind it Daisy.

Derry Brownfield link. Has some good information on this and other agriculture issues.

hillclimber · Mar 26, 2006

Perhaps a compromise. Have a display case of meats that were inspected, at a price reflective of the additional costs, and a normal one. Of course they would still have to get the DofA's kits though.

USDA Won't Allow Private Mad Cow Testing

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